Loose Ends Still Have Uses
by Serindrana
Summary: Callista Curnow is a welcome distraction in the wee hours of the morning. And a High Overseer makes a very nice, very well-washed companion. The only problems are that neither has a room of their own- and they're in the middle of a conspiracy.
1. I Not Rodentish At All

**I. Not Rodentish At All**

**I. Not Rodentish At All**

He ran into a very drab, very exhausted Callista Curnow on the stairs. She was almost a floor above him, but climbing slowly with her hand braced against the railing. It wasn't quite dawn yet, and he was only up because of dreams that wouldn't let him sleep, and a rampant curiosity about the Natural Philosopher they had chained up like a dog downstairs and about what the Abbey was up to, in its long deliberations. Why she was up was something of a mystery, but he took the meeting as a blessing.

Callista Curnow presented a very welcome distraction. What he had told Corvo the night before still stood - Callista Curnow was rather fetching, even with dark circles forming under bloodshot eyes, even dressed all in the sort of rat-brown that the whole world seemed to be dyed in these days.

"Miss Curnow," he said, softly enough that he wouldn't wake up Cecelia or Lydia or (please no) Wallace. Her hand stilled on the bannister without too much surprise. Good. She'd heard his footsteps, then.

Or she'd smelled the whiskey on his breath wafting on up to her, but that was hours old now. He was probably good.

She looked over her shoulder at him. Her face was all angles and shadows, but, he thought, Havelock had been wrong. She wasn't rodentish at all. At least not in this light. In this light, she looked tired, but thoughtful and more than a little pretty, the way her hair was just starting to come down from its high bun.

"Yes, Overseer?" she said, and there was only weariness, not wariness in her voice.

"Not an Overseer currently," he said, climbing a step to put them a little closer to level, a little closer together. "What has you up at this hour?"

"… the Lady Emily was tossing and turning with bad dreams most of the night. She's finally resting soundly."

"That seems to call for turning into bed," he said, climbing another step. She wasn't retreating. Experience told him that this was a good sign. Now, if he just had the courage, and she had the generosity… "Not making the trek from your tower to the kitchens."

"Soon," Callista said with a faint smile. That helped quite a bit with the severity of her features. "I needed some air first, though. Each time she woke, she insisted I keep the lamps on. I've been breathing in burning whale oil all night."

"And are you through with your walk?" he asked. Perhaps he should have let her go rest, but he could use the conversation and the exercise, and she was a grown woman who could make her own decisions.

She hesitated a moment, then shook her head and descended a step, putting their faces at the same level. "I could stand another turn, I guess."

He had to bite back a grin.

As they walked, he kept her well away from Piero's workshop. The last thing either of them needed was that odd little man peeping out at them or, worse, offering tips or asking to join. _Ah_, getting ahead of yourself again, Teague.

And then there was Sokolov's pen to avoid. And Samuel's nest beneath that old boat. Which left only the distillery, the grounds at the base of the tower, or the beach. (The riverbank here was a miserable excuse for a beach, and not conducive to the mood he was trying to pursue at all. But getting closer to harsh metal or to a sleeping girl-)

They went with the beach.

"I believe I overheard Admiral Havelock saying that you are going to depart shortly, to attend the Feast of Painted Kettles again?" Callista said after a moment.

_Pig-offal_. She was making this about business! Though, if he thought about it, she was rather desperate in the way she clung to propriety, and what she knew of how to _be_ proper. He went back through what he knew of her. Geoff Curnow's niece, no known family besides that, worked as a governess for merchant families like the Pratchetts' (before the wife had been divorced and the children sent off to Whitecliff). She'd never worked for the Pratchetts though, of course not. No, this was her big break.

He'd have to be careful not to make her think he would use that against her. That wasn't what he was after, not at all.

"Yes," he said after probably too long of a pause. "Though it is not a certainty. That I'll manage it, I mean."

"Using the names in that book of yours," she said, clasping her hands primly- behind her. Good sign! Not guarding herself, then.

"You've heard quite a bit."

"Havelock doesn't always seem sure about how much he wants to tell me. Tell me- is it usual for Overseers to gain power through blackmail?"

"Two is the beginning of a trend, I'd say," he said, with an honest sigh. "Though I do hope to not need it, eventually."

"How do you learn to do that?" she asked, stopping just where the Wrenhaven began to cut a shelf instead of a sandy slope. "I mean, do they teach you how to lie and cheat? In the Abbey?"

"They teach that in the world," he said. "I haven't always been an Overseer. And Campbell… knew enough of the world in his own way."

By Corvo's accounts, the beds hadn't even had sheets on them.

"And what were you before?" she asked, looking up at him with- yes, rather lovely eyes. He stepped closer again, like they'd been on the stairs, and again she didn't retreat.

"… Many things," he settled on. She didn't need to know his crimes, not right now- or ever. "A man, for one," he said, pitching his voice a little lower, and searching her eyes for a response.

There was a flare of interest, there, in the widening of her eyes, the parting of her lips- and then it was all closed away with a swallow and a deep breath.

"I'm- I may be misinterpreting, but-"

"You aren't," he said, but didn't quite reach for her hip. Her hands were unclasped now, and could come around to cover her at any moment.

Callista looked away. Not that scared, then, that she couldn't take her eyes off of him for fear of what he might do.

"The… plague," she said.

"I'm not a plague rat," he said, mock-offended, and she looked at him with a glare. Petulance! There was something beneath that propriety and that grasping, striving rightness, that fear of failure! (Come to think of it, there was rather a lot to her. He'd have to be careful. Nuanced women were a weakness of his.)

"I never said that. I only meant that, with the deaths, the conspiracy, with Emily upstairs, I don't- we shouldn't-"

"Not even for one night?" He glanced at the horizon. An almost finished night. He could use that. "Not even for one night that's almost over, and will soon be in that grey hour that doesn't seem to exist at all?" Now, he tried to rest a hand on her hip. She let him. "It could be," he said, voice dropping at last to a rough whisper that he could see affected her, "our own private Fugue Feast."

"I don't participate in those," she said, swallowing again.

"Of course not." He smiled a little wider. "Then, consider it a furthering of your education. To teach an Empress, you'll have to be flawlessly learned. And I think I can teach you a few things."

Her eyes darted back and forth as she looked him over, no doubt searching for some last excuse or objection, but then, with one shaky motion, she nodded and shifted her weight against his hand.

"Though," he murmured, drawing her against him, "there is a slight problem."

"What?"

"… I don't have a bed of my own. In a private place, I mean."

"Neither do I."

"Exactly my point." He tapped a finger against her hip, then nudged her back against a piece of metal forming a makeshift wall against potential flood waters. It was clear of any barnacles or rough bits that he could make out. "Allow me," he said, and dropped to one knee.

"What are you-"

"First lesson. There are things we can do that don't require a bed." He winked at her, then unlaced the front of her knee breeches and tugged them down, fast enough that she couldn't protest except to squeal as her bare skin brushed back against the cold metal behind her.

—

Later, with the taste of her still on his lips and with her still shaking (not just from pleasure, sadly, the woman was asleep on her feet now), he led her up the stairs, her hand tucked against his elbow. She hadn't spoken after she'd cried out his name loud enough that Samuel, at least, must have heard. His grin after that probably hadn't helped matters, but he hadn't expected her to come apart quite that nicely.

Given time, and a bed, and some breathing room for her-

"Martin," she said, and he found himself correcting,

"Teague,"

without actually thinking about it.

"… Teague," she said, and it had been quite a while since he'd heard his given name on a woman's lips, and yes, he'd have to make her cry out that name, too. "If that was supposed to be a lesson, for Emily's sake…"

She trailed off.

Martin choked a little.


	2. II The Hound Incident

**II. The Hound Incident**

While Teague Martin was a very nice man, and had given her a very nice orgasm, it was probably for the best that by the time she woke up the following day (too early, but Emily was up, and so she was up), he was gone and the news was already blaring that he had been accepted as the new High Overseer, without any extra effort on his part.

If he'd stayed around much longer, she might have found herself falling for him, worried chin and protruding ears and all. As it was, she got to stick by her policy of avoiding powerful men, and avoiding attachment altogether.

Everybody she ever loved had died (save for her uncle, but Corvo had alluded that it was a very near thing). And it was hard enough not to love Emily. She didn't need anybody else added to the mix, that she would have to hold at arms' length even though it pained her, all in order to keep him safe.

Which left her at the Hound Pits, a governess to a future empress, spied on by a mad inventor and currently huddled in a bath staring up at Corvo Attano.

He was being polite, at least, though he could have waited until she was _through_ to tell him that Piero had been peeping.

"Corvo," she said, sinking a little lower in the murky water and trying not to think about the bruising love bites on her thighs, "I appreciate your concern. But-"

Something dark passed over his face. She waited through it.

"My apologies," he said at last, and finally, _finally_ went to the door. "I… acted as if you were the late Empress. I wouldn't have thought twice-"

_Oh, no. No, I don't want to hear this_. She splashed at the water to cover whatever else he was going to mumble. "I understand," she said, while fervently attempting not to. "Now please- leave?"

He shut the door.

She sank fully beneath the surface.

* * *

Days passed with no word from Teague. Corvo infiltrated the party at the Boyle ladies' manor with nary a hiccup, and Emily did her best to turn all lessons on the bounty of the Empire into complaints about the tasted of jellied eels and brined hagfish. They all waited as Parliament trundled on, and Teague - _Martin_, she thought, and then _the High Overseer_ - settled in to the Abbey.

Corvo took to telling Emily about the stars after dusk, leaving Callista free. She spent quite a bit of time on the banks of the Wrenhaven, though out of sight of that one piece of scrap metal. One night, after a long stroll that left her feeling mostly confident about the way everything was going to turn out (the feeling would fade by morning, if she wasn't careful with it), she returned to find Cecilia up far too late, cleaning up a spill of what smelled like whiskey mixed with river water.

Lord Pendleton must have returned for a visit, then.

"Cecelia," Callista said. "Go to bed, you've been up since before dawn."

The girl looked up, then continued mopping. "Wallace will have a fit if his shoes stick to the floor in the morning," she said.

"I'll take care of it. Go on."

Cecelia hesitated, then handed over the mop. "Thanks."

Callista smiled, faintly. "Go on," she repeated.

She was alone and rinsing the mop out when she heard a door creak open, and she froze. The room was almost entirely dark, the electric lights dimmed down and no lanterns out in their place. She could see a shadow. Pendleton? No, too wide. Havelock? Not wide enough. She had half a moment to think maybe Corvo had come down to get a midnight snack for Emily (which she would have to talk to him about) before whoever it was stepped into a spot of murky moonlight.

And there was Teague Martin, smiling as he caught sight of her.

"Good evening, Miss Curnow," he said, coming up to the bar and leaning his hands on it.

"High Overseer," she said, trying very much to be serious, but finding herself smirking all the same.

"Just the woman I was hoping to see." He tapped a finger against the wood a moment, then seemed to decide that going around to the entrance was just too much work, and levered himself over it, landing just in front of her.

To her own surprise, she didn't step back, not even to protect her toes.

"I expected I'd have to wait until the early hours of the morning, though. Or until tomorrow. Instead, you're mopping floors?"

"Cecelia needed a break."

He hummed acknowledgment, then looked down a moment. Playing at being bashful?

"And how is the Abbey?" she asked.

"In an uproar. A veritable nest of river krusts. Everybody's spitting and roaring and complaining, and I'm stuck in the middle of it. Had to take a break."

"I see." She canted her head to catch his gaze. "And you were hoping to find me."

There was that smile again, the rakish, boyish one. It made her belly twist a little, even obscured as it was in the low light. "Well, I said last time that it was a _first_ lesson, didn't I? Implies a second. If," he added, "you're amenable, that is."

"I still share a room with Emily, and I'm not too interested in cavorting on the beach."

"And I still don't have a room of my own," he said, then snaked an arm around her waist and pulled her closer. "But I do have an idea for Lesson the Second - in addition to things you can do that don't require a bed, there are also things you can do that don't require undressing much at all, and so can be enacted, say, in a darkened bar."

"That sounds awfully similar to Lesson the First," she cautioned, even as she tilted her chin up, curious if he would let her kiss him.

He tilted his head in just the way that said, _yes, ladies first_. "Well, repetition is a good learning method. Or so I've been told."

She kissed him, rising up on her toes just a fraction of an inch, and carded her hands through his hair. The benefits of having a High Overseer as a bedmate were becoming more and more apparent: they apparently cared less about the Strictures than the rank and file in their shining masks, and this one, at least, bathed frequently.

He turned them both around, and backed her against the bar, the hard edge of it biting into her hip. His lips were dry and cool, no doubt from a jaunt along the river to get here, and he tasted of Serkonnos spices and some kind of aftershave she decided she quite liked. He broke the kiss quickly, though, and dotted little bites down her neck, then nudged at her hips until she turned in his arms.

"If only skirts were the fashion these days," he murmured against the nape of her neck, "like they were in Morley a decade ago." Instead, he fumbled again with the fastenings of her breeches and, like last time, tugged them down decisively. She shivered, half in delight and half in embarrassment.

"If somebody sees us-" she said, more aware now of her partial nudity than she had been on the riverbanks.

"Who's awake to see? Corvo?" He nipped at her earlobe as he pulled away to pull off his gloves and unfasten his own pants. "Besides. Whoever made that mess picked a nice quiet corner to do it in, and the benefits of the second lesson are the quick recoveries it allows if we're found." He covered her with his body again, warm and still mostly clothed, and slipped a hand between her thighs.

She forgot her arguments the moment he pressed a finger into her. She'd already forgotten how different it was, how glorious, not to feel her own touch but another's. Before she could find her thoughts again, he murmured against her neck,

"Restrict the wandering gaze that looks hither and yonder for some flashing thing that easily catches a man's fancy in one moment, but brings calamity in the next. For the eyes are never tired of seeing."

_Oh_. He certainly knew how to say the Strictures, even though he was clearly violating the Sixth, not to mention the Third. _Restless Hands_, indeed. She braced her hands on the bar and looked over her shoulder at him. "Are you saying," she managed as he added a second finger inside of her and her hips tilted of their own accord, "that I'm a flashing thing come to ruin you?"

"Maybe," he said, pressing hard against her and nibbling at the shell of her ear. "Or maybe I'm saying that- ah-"

He tried to distract her by removing his hand entirely, and instead gripping her hips and rocking his own against her, but she valiantly tried to focus. "Or maybe-?"

"Maybe," he said, voice a bare whisper as he gave up on whatever fumbled teasing he was attempting and guided himself into her, bit by bit with his breath rattling, "maybe I would… like it if you were to be… if we…"

He filled her in one stroke, then leaned shuddering against her, catching his breath. Callista let her head fall forward. _If you, if we_ echoed with each thudding heartbeat, rooted at where they were joined.

"I want to be the only one, with you," he said at last, whispered so she could barely catch it.

And then, before she could think of a response, he began to move, fast enough and firmly enough that she had to grip the bar to stay standing, and had to bite her lip not to cry out.

_There_ was all the skill he'd had when he nipped at her thighs and plied her with his tongue. His fumbling confession out of the way, he was all experience and power, and his fingers dug into her hips. There'd be marks. Outsider's eyes, she _wanted_ the marks. She whined, low in her throat and arched her spine, feet sliding apart a little more with each thrust, legs bound only by the fabric bunched tight around her knees.

He was gasping something she thought _might_ be her name, when footsteps on the stairs echoed into the room, cutting through their panting breaths. Teague stopped first, Callista rutting back for just a moment, until she heard it too: stumbling, heavy footsteps, followed by,

"Blast it all, Wallace! I told you- I _told_ you-"

Before she could straighten up and pull away from Martin, he had an arm around her waist and dragged her back against him, then maneuvered them both to the floor, her across his lap, him still seated inside of her.

"_Let go_," she hissed, even as she shifted so that he could fill her less awkwardly. "I thought the point was we could cover ourselves up-"

"He's drunk. Just wait it out," Martin said, and he was half a second from laughing, she could tell. He grinned against her throat, then covered her mouth with one bare hand and bucked his hips a little. She cursed against his palm.

Light from a lantern broke across part of the room, beyond the bar, and she could make out maybe the left shoulder of one Treavor Pendleton, staggering in alone. No Wallace in sight. Treavor was mumbling to himself about needing more whiskey or brandy or _something_, and was crashing into just about every piece of furniture it was reasonable for him to encounter on the way. He tipped over a barstool, and it hit the ground with a resounding thud, which Martin used to cover another thrust, as well as the whine Callista let out as he reached between her legs with his free hand.

"He'll be gone in a minute," Martin said, and Callista nudged him firmly in the ribs with an elbow. He kissed her shoulder in response.

"Bloated hagfish," Treavor muttered, "telling me that it was unfashin.. enable…"

Another crash, along with liquid splashing and dripping. _There goes a bottle, likely of something good_. The curses Treavor were coming up with were impressive, and she tried to focus on those rather than how Martin could apparently still keep rhythm through it all, even sitting, pinned under her weight.

When he blew cool air against the nape of her neck, though, she couldn't help but squeal and arch, her voice loud enough that Martin's hand could do precisely nothing about it.

Treavor's footsteps shuffled to a halt.

"Hello?" he asked. "'s something there?"

Callista froze.

Maybe he would go away.

Treavor took a few steps closer. "Anything? Body? Anybody?"

Martin had stopped moving too, at least. In fact, he gave her a reassuring squeeze on her hip.

And then he barked and snarled like a hound, loudly enough that Treavor jumped back, stumbled, and fell on his ass.

Another few snarls, and Treavor retreated with an undignified protest of _Who let those in here!_ and slammed shut the door to the staircase.

Callista slowly turned to look at Martin.

He winked, then bucked his hips again.

* * *

The next morning, Wallace organized a search of the whole premises for any sign of loose hounds. Cecelia had to clean up another spill. And Teague Martin sat in conference with Havelock for a whole day and acted like he hadn't spent the whole night laughing and delighting in Callista Curnow's body.

Keeping work and play separate was a very important part of being High Overseer, after all.


	3. III Distillation

**III. Distillation**

"Restrict the wandering gaze," Callista murmured in Martin's ear as she cinched the blindfold tight, then removed her hands entirely from his body.

The distillery room was cold despite what he remembered being blinding sunlight coming in through the skylights, and he shivered as he heard her footsteps retreat. He had a split-second vision of her removing the barricades they'd set up to give them some privacy, and leaving him to be found some time later by- oh, who would be worse? Treavor, throwing up all over him? Havelock, berating him? _Emily Kaldwin_, giggling and telling him he reminded her of some fool at the Cat?

No, no, there she was, returning again. Closer, closer. He knew those footsteps well by now. He'd gotten her alone about four times in the last six days, and that had to be some kind of unholy feat. He hadn't really noticed the lack of privacy at the Pits, not even when he'd first bedded down in the servants' room, but it was getting harder and harder to find new and interesting ways to get her out of sight and against a wall or over a table or (on the most recent occasion) on top of the stair railing.

He could feel himself getting hard by the time he heard the pull of fabric and creak of her shoes as she crouched, this time in front of him. He twisted his wrists against the bonds restraining them behind his back.

"And the restless hands," Callista chided, voice pitched low and rough enough to make him arch and lick his lips.

"I thought you liked my restless hands," he said, smirking and leaning towards her voice.

"If you'd only lie," she said, catching his chin in her hands and holding him in place, "I'd gag you, too."

"Come closer," he said. "It's damn cold in here like this." _Like this_ being stark naked, his clothing no doubt neatly folded a good distance off.

She didn't move at first, and he wondered if a good pout would help. Then she leaned in, and he felt the warm ghost of her breath against his lips. "I thought I told you," she said, "that I'm the one in charge this time." He exhaled shakily, leaning into her touch.

If he said _Kiss me_, would she slap him? Outsider's eyes, he kind of wanted her to. Tightly wound little Callista, coming undone? Nails grabbing at his scalp, biting into his skin, teeth where soft lips should be-

She let go of him and stood again, and he lurched forward, suddenly unbalanced.

"We can't spend all day in here," he reminded her, as her footsteps faded. "_I _can't stay all day in here. When Corvo gets back-"

His voice faltered.

When Corvo got back, Hiram Burrows would be dead, and their little fantasy world would have to be put on hold, if not burned to the ground. He swallowed, thickly.

"Please come back," he said.

He couldn't hear her moving, or breathing, or existing over the faint bubbling sounds coming from the nearby pot still. If it hadn't been for the furniture wedged squarely against the doors, he would have thought she had snuck out. No, she had to be somewhere. Watching him?

Or worse- ignoring him?

He could feel his cheeks begin to burn, and he squirmed a little where he knelt. "Callista," he said, a bit louder this time. "I'm sorry, I'll play your game. I'll listen. Whatever you ask of me."

Her voice sounded right in his ear as she leaned forward, "Shut up, Teague."

The touch of her hands splayed on his back almost made him moan, warm and soft and surprising. Had Corvo been teaching her how to sneak? Had she been there the whole time? Her hands slid up and over his shoulders, along his neck, into his hair. She pulled his head back, exposing his throat, and he leaned back into it.

She waited, as if expecting him to protest, or cajole, but he stayed silent.

"You must promise me something," she said at last, murmuring the words against his throat. When had rat-brown, tired, proper little Callista become as sensual as a girl from the Golden Cat? Maybe it was the blindfold, messing with his perception. She was probably hunched over, awkwardly holding onto him, unsure of how to do any of this.

That just made her more attractive to him. His throat bobbed again as he swallowed, heartbeat loud in his ears.

"Promise me," she said, and now her face was pressed to his overheating skin, her words muffled and distorted and barely audible, "that no matter what, you'll do your best not to die."

He blinked beneath the fabric, eyelashes brushing and catching on it. "I- die? I don't plan on it, no. Callista-"

"Promise me."

"I'll do my best. Callista, is something wrong?" Her breathing was uneven and ragged and- frightened? No, no, that wasn't how this was supposed to go. He turned, awkwardly, and tried to lean against her. He couldn't pull her close, not like this, but-

Callista stood up, and he fell to the ground.

"Nothing at all," she said, the mask she usually wore back in place. Standing, she nudged him onto his back with her shod toe. He groaned and shifted, trying not to put too much weight onto his hands and arms. He was still struggling when she sank to her knees and straddled him, leaning down to kiss him with all the fervor he'd been praying for all afternoon.

She was hungry, and desperate, and he answered her eagerly, yielding when her tongue played against his lips, letting her fill his mouth instead of the other way 'round. He forgot about his hands and their quick-growing ache, and focused instead on how warm she was, how certain, how determined. Her hands slid over his chest and shoulders and belly, exploring every inch of him that, he realized, she hadn't gotten a chance to before now.

Then he realized she was, aside from her stockings and shoes, completely naked, and he arched up helplessly against the heat of her thighs and groin, gasping her name.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd let anybody tie him up willingly, let alone cover his eyes, but it had been obvious since that first foolish night out by the Wrenhaven that Callista was a little different, primed to wiggle under his defenses and into his thoughts and _fuck_ but her lips going to his neck and collarbone was perfect, undeniably perfect. He bit his lip and hissed out another groan, trying to imagine her. He'd seen her thighs and her ass and her belly and her lovely breasts, but never altogether. She was naked down to her calves, as far as he can tell by the brushes of skin over skin, and she was arching, back curving and spine standing out, no doubt, in countable knobs along her back.

The floor was damnably cold and hard, and his wrists finally protested loudly enough at being crushed that he hissed and tried to sit up again. Callista sat back, and hooked an arm under his, helping him up. He sat forward and balanced himself precariously on his hands, and she adjusted easily, rolling her hips up against his length and belly.

Leaning forward, he buried his face against her neck. Her hands carded into his hair again, gentle at first, then scraping light patterns across his scalp. He groaned. The sensation was better than he had imagined for its deliberate slowness.

He'd already used up his night's supply of begging, so he wordlessly rocked his hips up against her, hoping she'd take the hint. She'd tortured him long enough, in his opinion.

She seemed to agree.

* * *

Callista rested, curled against Teague's side, tucked between him and a wall of barrels. The sun had set upwards of an hour ago, maybe more. Time had lost much of its meaning, now that they had an uninterrupted stretch of it.

Teague's wrists had an unfortunate spot of bruising on them, but she'd kissed it better, and then some. He'd returned the favor (despite the fact that he had caused all those bruises a day or two ago). There had been some more rolling on an unforgiving floor, more kisses, a creative second use for the cloth that had served as a blindfold. All in all, it had been a good evening.

"Callista," Teague murmured, and she lifted her head.

"Hm?"

He plucked at the collar of her shirt. "I think I liked you better without all of this silly _clothing_ involved."

"It's cold," she pointed out, and he smirked in agreement.

"So it is," he said. He traced his finger along the neckline. "... So where did that come from, earlier? The promise you extracted from me?"

Callista stilled. She had hoped he wouldn't ask.

Gingerly, she pulled away from him and stood up, moving over to the barricade and beginning to take it down, piece by piece. Teague followed shortly after. He moved some of the heavier scraps and furniture, then put himself between her and the door, arms crossed over his chest.

"You had me worried that you were about to start, I don't know, playing games with me and molten lead."

"That clearly wasn't it," she said.

He didn't smile.

He did, however, reach out and catch her wrist when she tried to turn away. "Callista," he said, voice quiet but firm. "You can tell me. If you made me promise, you can tell me."

Her throat felt thick, words unwieldy. "It's silly," she said.

"It clearly wasn't," he said, echoing her. "You were terrified, when you asked me."

Callista shifted uncomfortably. "Let go, please."

He did, and she wrapped her arms around herself. She couldn't look at him, not with how he was frowning. All that _concern_ in his eyes - for her? It wasn't healthy.

"Callista," he said again, this time just a pleading whisper.

She took a deep breath. "Everybody I've ever- cared about has ended up dead," she said. "Or close to it, anyway. Uncle Geoff would have died if Corvo had been a second later. He'd have made it a perfect record."

Callista waited for him to catch on _cared about_, translate it into the enormity of the attachment she'd found herself with, mock her with it or crow about it or, maybe worse still, return the sentiment out loud. Instead, he reached out and clasped her shoulder, like a soldier to his brother in arms.

"Well," he said, "I did make a promise. I intend to keep it. Or you may restrict my lying tongue in any way you seem fit."

She stared at him, wanting to scream and laugh and kiss him all at once. Instead, she just said, "Teague, you're suggesting I mutilate your corpse?"

His mouth opened before he could come up with a suitable excuse or retort, but before he could put his words together, the voice of Dunwall came faint through the walls and windows:

"_The corrupt reign of our Lord Regent has ended. Hiram Burrows has been apprehended for crimes against the city and people of Dunwall. The corrupt reign of our Lord Regent has ended. Hiram Burrows..."_

Callista's nervous smile fell. Martin's expression was frozen, shuttered and withdrawn.

He turned away from her. "I had better go see Havelock."


	4. IV A Fine Serkonan Vintage

**IV. A Fine Serkonan Vintage**

Martin lifted the glass Havelock offered him to his lips and tasted the same poison used to kill Campbell.

He drank it anyway.

* * *

There was music playing, and it dragged his mind towards something resembling wakefulness. He groaned as he realized he wasn't tucked into some bed somewhere, or slumped over a table, but standing. After a brief moment of fearing he was in some kind of stocks again to keep him upright, he saw that he simply… _was_.

Just as the earth around him simply _wasn't_ rooted to itself, floating up into a boundless blue-purple hazy sky.

Was that- was that a-

He stared at the leviathan hanging motionless in the heavens as his stomach turned to lead shot and his blood curdled in his veins. Was this death, then? Death, in the Void, in the Outsider's realm? The Strictures never spoke of death, except that it was an _end_. A reprieve from the soul's constant war. But he remembered the poison in his cup, and he could think of no other explanation.

A woman's laugh - _Callista's laugh_ - was the only thing that made him turn around.

She was in the arms of a young man, and they were dancing to the music that played too loud and too fast from somewhere he couldn't locate. It didn't sound like Serkonan music, or Gristol music, or Tyvian music, or even drinking songs and sea shanties. It was bright and vibrant and crashing and cavorting, and Callista moved as if it were the beating of her heart. Under her partner's hands, her hips not only swayed but actively twisted, and she grinned, expression seemingly forever stuck in joy.

They were the only moving, living things in that cursed realm, and Martin found himself running towards them, only to come up short at the edge of a cliff.

The young man in Callista's arms turned his head, and Martin stared into cold, unfeeling black eyes. His jaw tightened as eerie recognition surged inside of him.

"Get your hands off of her," he said, his voice carrying unnaturally in the still air, cutting through the music as if it were cloth hanging in space between them. "She's not dead. I made _sure_ she was not dead."

Callista didn't look at him, and didn't seem to notice as the Outsider stepped away from her. She simply continued dancing. Her eyes, too, were blank and empty.

That was not Callista. He took a deep, steadying breath as the Outsider simply stepped upward, barely moving, as if distance was no issue here. Coming in close, the Outsider canted his head to one side, considering him.

"You're not dead, either, you know," the Outsider said.

* * *

"He's been like this since I found him," Corvo said as he let Callista into the room at Dunwall tower he had set aside for the former High Overseer.

Callista stopped just inside the doorway, looking between him and Martin. "You didn't kill him."

Corvo shook his head.

"Why not?" She swallowed down the riot of emotions for the fifth or sixth time since entering the building. "He had the others killed, Corvo. He had _you_ killed."

"I'm not dead," Corvo said, and Callista bit down a hysterical laugh.

"By the good graces of Samuel Beechworth! Corvo-"

"I thought," he said, "you would be happy. To see him alive."

She looked over to Martin, unconscious in his bed, face contorted in what looked like pain. His hands fisted in the bedsheets, knuckles white.

"I am," she said, so softly she wasn't sure if she'd spoken or exhaled.

"He will be kept under guard," Corvo said, "if he ever wakes again. He will be no danger, and no Overseer. That will be enough."

Callista took a few more steps towards the bed, then paused again, looked back again. "Is this your particular brand of mercy? The one that leads to fates worse than death?"

Corvo shrugged, and shut the door.

* * *

He relived his past three times over, that he could count. His childhood in the Abbey, the daring flight, the soul-crushing poverty and fear, the army, the roads, the coin and violence and death, the conspiracy. He relived only the agony of it, over and over again.

And in the pauses between each iteration, the Outsider would look at him and say, "Do you think you're dead yet?"

But he knew. The poison that had killed Campbell had been not the Tyvian stuff that Havelock had procured for Corvo Attano, but a Serkonan blend that was now very rare and very expensive. Havelock had been exceedingly stupid in his final days. If he'd gone with the leftover Tyvian tincture, Martin would have been rotting in the ocean by now.

But he was too smart a man to ever let himself die the same way his predecessor had. It would have taken a far greater dose of the Serkonan poison to kill him.

Havelock hadn't compensated appropriately, if he'd suspected at all.

* * *

Martin talked in his sleep. He mumbled and he hissed and he shouted. Getting him to take food or water was a trial; he responded to each as if choking or drowning, and he fought her every inch of the way.

Sometimes, he spoke of a black-eyed man, and all Callista could think of was Emily's night terrors.

She spent her days talking with Corvo and with Emily about what would have to be done in the coming weeks and months, taking breaks to check on her patient. She was no nurse. She couldn't be the one to change his clothing or was the spittle and blood from his dried and cracking lips. But she did pat his hand every so often, until the sight of him unconscious and likely dying drove her from the room in fear.

Why couldn't he have done them both a favor and died properly, easily, quickly? Or better yet, why did he have to be so arrogant and power-mad? She wanted to take him by the shoulders, shake him and demand an answer. He could have been High Overseer without turning on Corvo, without killing Lydia and Wallace. And yet, and yet, and yet.

He had done all of that.

She left his room in disgust as often as she left it in fear.

* * *

"Kill me, and be done with it," Martin said.

"I am a neutral force in this world, Teague Martin," the Outsider said. Callista had, luckily, long ago stopped appearing during these little meetings. There were no more heretical dances to distract him. Only pitch-black eyes and a small, curious little smile. "I can't kill you."

He laughed, bitterly, around the lingering memory of poison in his mouth. "Then when one of your supplicants begs for your attention next, tell him where to find me!"

The Outsider considered this for a moment, then shook his head. "But how would they recognize you? No, that is our first step, I think." And then he reached out a hand, settling it over Martin's face.

* * *

Martin's screams woke her.

She started awake in her chair to Martin arched in his bed, eyes open for the first time in over a week. He clawed at his face, and she shot forward, grabbing his wrists before he could gouge his eyes out. She watched as his skin bubbled from brow to chin along the right side of his face, boiled and burned.

By the time the nurses came, it was too late. The Outsider's mark stood in bright red, raw flesh, and Martin was unconscious again.

* * *

He woke up two days later. Callista was in lessons with Emily, and by the time the news reached her, he was washed and dressed and sitting up in bed. The right side of his head was wrapped in heavy bandages, but he already knew what he would find when he was allowed to remove them.

He smiled weakly at Callista as she entered, shutting the door quietly behind her.

"I'm going to need a mask again," he said, voice rasping and weak. "I thought those days were over."

"Then you will have a mask. Though I don't think the Abbey will take you back. Treason _and_ the mark?"

"Corvo says it isn't a real one," he said. "I won't be able to do the… things that he does. Pity, that. It would have made all of this a little… easier."

She hovered by the door.

"Come over here," he said, and for a moment it looked like she would refuse. Then she sighed and smiled at him, shaking her head, and joined him on the edge of his mattress. "I have a bed of my own, now," he offered.

"If you weren't half-dead, I would hit you," she said, scowling.

"It was just an observation."

"_Lydia and Wallace are dead_."

His expression fell, and he looked down at his hands, then towards the door. "Yes, well. I never said I was a _good_ man, just that I was a man."

"Aren't you going to tell me that- Havelock made you? That it was all his idea?"

"It wasn't." He chanced a glance back at her. She didn't _look_ as if she were filled with hatred and rage. Just… exhaustion. She looked as exhausted as she had that first night. "It was my idea as much as his. It seemed… like an opportunity."

"And if Havelock hadn't owed my uncle that favor?"

"And if I hadn't reminded him of that favor?" he asked, softly.

The color drained from her face and her mouth hung open. "… Oh," she said.

"Lydia and Wallace… he did insist on. But two deaths on the books weren't to be so great, in the scheme of things." He frowned. "I miscalculated. Even before we knew Corvo was coming for us, we knew it was a failure. We should have waited."

"Or just supported Emily as she was."

"Or that, yes."

He fell silent, staring down at his hands. She was going to leave. It wouldn't be so bad, he thought. He'd known he would lose her when they all left the Hound Pits. That was always part of the plan. It had been hard the first time, knowing he would leave her to death and misery, but now she had a home in Dunwall Tower. Yes. Yes, this was the best outcome. He could go somewhere where the mark wouldn't matter, or perhaps take a page out of Corvo's book and grow out his hair, and perhaps masks would be in fashion in Tyvia this fall-

Callista settled a hand over his.

"The Abbey will not take you back," she said, "and you are too dangerous to let go unwatched. But Corvo says he may have use for you."

Gingerly, he stroked her knuckles with thumb. She didn't pull away.

_Oh_, he thought. _That's a good sign._

"So as long as you intend on continuing to live, it seems we'll be close by."

He looked up at her to find her trying out a very small, very experimental smile. It really did help her features quite a bit, her eyes shining again despite how tired she must be. "And I have a bed," he offered.

"You dog," she said.

He grinned, and let out a little bark.

**End**

* * *

_A/N: This started (at least for the first chapter) as a response to a request for Martin/Callista pwp, and somehow picked up feels and a lack of cracktasticness. Um. Oops?_


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